/release-cekernel

Analyzes the git log since the last release tag, recommends a semantic version bump level, generates structured release notes, and creates a release PR directly.

Usage

/release-cekernel
/release-cekernel 1.4.0

If a version is provided, skip the analysis and use it directly. Otherwise, analyze commits and recommend a version.

Workflow

Step 1: Determine Current Version and Last Tag

PREV_TAG=$(git tag -l 'cekernel-v*' --sort=-v:refname | head -1)
CURRENT_VERSION=$(jq -r '.version' .claude-plugin/plugin.json)
echo "Current version: ${CURRENT_VERSION}"
echo "Last tag: ${PREV_TAG}"

Step 2: Analyze Commits Since Last Tag

git log "${PREV_TAG}..HEAD" --oneline --no-merges

Classify each commit by its conventional commit prefix:

The highest-level bump wins:

• Any breaking change → major
• Any feat: → minor
• Otherwise → patch

Step 3: Recommend Version

Calculate the recommended version from the current version and the determined bump level. Present to the user:

## Release Analysis

Last tag: cekernel-v1.3.0
Commits since last tag: N

### Changes
- feat: 2 commits (minor bump)
- fix: 3 commits
- docs: 1 commit

### Recommended bump: minor
### Proposed version: 1.4.0

Proceed? (y/n)

If the user provided a version argument, show the analysis but use the specified version instead.

Wait for user confirmation before proceeding.

Step 4: Generate Release Notes

Generate RELEASE_NOTES.md following the cekernel-v1.2.0 format.

4a: Gather PR list

# Get merged PRs between last tag and HEAD
git log "${PREV_TAG}..HEAD" --merges --oneline

Also use the GitHub API to get PR details:

gh pr list --state merged --base main --search "merged:>=$(git log -1 --format=%ci ${PREV_TAG} | cut -d' ' -f1)" --json number,title,author --limit 100

4b: Build release notes

Generate the following sections from the commit and PR analysis.

IMPORTANT: The first line MUST be # cekernel-v${VERSION} (hyphen between cekernel and v, matching the tag name exactly). The workflow plugin-release-tag.yml uses this heading for extraction — a mismatch (e.g. space instead of hyphen) causes an empty release body.

# cekernel-v${VERSION}

## Highlights
- Summary of the most important changes in this release (3-8 bullet points)
- Focus on user-facing impact, not implementation details
- Bold key terms for scannability

## New Features
- feat: commit descriptions (one bullet per feature)

## Bug Fixes
- fix: commit descriptions (one bullet per fix)

## Documentation
- docs: commit descriptions (one bullet per doc change)

## What's Changed
* PR title by @author in PR-URL (one line per merged PR)

**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/clonable-eden/cekernel/compare/${PREV_TAG}...cekernel-v${VERSION}

Rules:

• Highlights is written by Claude based on understanding of the changes. Summarize themes, not individual commits.
• New Features / Bug Fixes / Documentation are derived from conventional commit prefixes. refactor: and test: commits go under a Other Changes section if present.
• What's Changed lists all merged PRs with author attribution and links (same format as GitHub's --generate-notes).
• Full Changelog is the compare URL between the previous tag and the new tag.

4c: Present for review

Show the generated release notes to the user and wait for confirmation. The user may request edits before proceeding.

Step 5: Create Release Branch and PR

After the user confirms both the version and the release notes:

5a: Create release branch

git checkout -b "release/cekernel-v${VERSION}"

5b: Update plugin.json version

Use jq to update the version field:

jq --arg v "${VERSION}" '.version = $v' .claude-plugin/plugin.json > tmp.json
mv tmp.json .claude-plugin/plugin.json

5c: Write RELEASE_NOTES.md

Overwrite RELEASE_NOTES.md at the repository root with the confirmed release notes for this version only. Past releases are preserved in GitHub Releases and do not need to be kept in this file.

5d: Commit and push

git add .claude-plugin/plugin.json RELEASE_NOTES.md
git commit -m "release: cekernel v${VERSION}"
git push -u origin "release/cekernel-v${VERSION}"

5e: Create PR

gh pr create \
  --title "release: cekernel v${VERSION}" \
  --body "$(cat <<EOF
Version bump for cekernel plugin.

- Updates \`.claude-plugin/plugin.json\` version to \`${VERSION}\`
- Adds \`RELEASE_NOTES.md\` for structured release notes
- On merge, \`plugin-release-tag.yml\` will automatically create tag \`cekernel-v${VERSION}\` and GitHub Release

EOF
)"

Step 6: Report Result

## Release PR Created

- **PR**: #<number>
- **Branch**: release/cekernel-v<VERSION>
- **Version**: <VERSION>

### Next Steps
1. Review the PR and merge it
2. On merge, `plugin-release-tag.yml` will automatically create tag `cekernel-v<VERSION>` and GitHub Release with the contents of RELEASE_NOTES.md